A Blog from Amman, Jordan, Online Since 2004.

Month: November 2009
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While I insist that Eid is the lamest excuse for a vacation ever, I still managed to have a very good time with the family (that extends to funny degrees), as well as eat more meat than I have eaten in a while :)Hope your Eid is being as lovely as mine (or Thanksgiving, or weekend, or whatever it is you’re currently celebrating).

A few pictures just to let you know what I mean:

Now that that is said and done, I should be back shortly, as soon as I’m done getting my neurons tangled up with Twilight, as soon as I’m done kissing cheeks.

I have been a reader since I was a very young child. Before I learned to read, I would pester my mom endlessly to read to me. As soon as I learned to read, I read everything that my hands possibly found, often not understanding a single word.

I guess during those early days of book exploring, I discovered vampires. It could have been R. L. Stine, it could have been abridged Bram Stoker, it could have been L. J. Smith, it was probably Christopher Pike, but it also could have been Anne Rice.

The world of vampires lured me into the fantasy genre, and I never got out of it. I’ll always find something entertaining in a book about fantastical creatures, even if its one of the most hyped up books in the world.

Currently, I’m reading Twilight, after I sort of enjoyed the movie when I watched it thanks to the hottness of Pattinson on MBC Max. My awesome friend Lina got me her copies (Lina and I are book soulmates), and I started the first one last night (after reading the entire series on Wikipedia) :)

And I gotta say this, loud and clear: THE BOOK IS ACTUALLY GOOD.

Okay, Mormon mom isn’t a quarter as eloquent as Anne Rice, and is no where near the brilliance of J.K.Rowling, and the plot isn’t even slightly as smart as that of His Dark Materials, but it’s good reading.

Recommended for anyone looking for a super quick, and entertaining, read (the 500 pages took me around 3 hours).

I’m ALWAYS browsing the web, even when I’m sinking knee-deep in design, or sitting at a relative’s place faking polite interest (sometimes on my phone, other times in my head).

I’m constantly reading online, feeling sorry for myself because I can’t read faster, or remember more of what I read. I skim and scan, often mindlessly, just to close the current tab and go to the next.

I bookmark sites, clip away phrases, and crave my childhood ability to memorize great chapters, great books, great sentences. I still remember the books I memorized when I was 10. I don’t remember the sentence I tried to get myself to memorize last night.

The digital scatterbrain. That is I.

I know everything. Just give me a second to google it. I know nothing. I do know it’s somewhere online.

It’s 12:12, and I’m facing my daily challenge of shutting down. Not before I share this link with you though, which is why I decided to write this post in the first place.

It’s called “Overhearing the Internet“, and it was written in 1993. I was eight years old, a year shy of discovering my addiction to MS Encarta, and four years shy of logging on.

An excerpt:

“Thus the answer to Big Question #4–Will the Net alter the very metaphysics of human existence?–is: not really. The attraction of cyberspace isn’t so much that it radically transforms human interaction as that it leaves the feeling of interaction intact.”

Fifteen years on, the answer to Big Question #4 is a FAIL.

As a bonus, the link also has a much more FAILish article about the digital smiley.

And it goes on and on. Usually for an hour. I’m sure this happens often with other companies as well, so I’ve created this handy little flow-chart that will hopefully make ordering decisions much easier :)

Hair is not like shoes, because often, you’re born with it. But seriously, bad genes are still not a good enough excuse to subject humanity to atrocious hair design.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you look into the mirror and see a reflection that looks similar to any of these images, you have a problem.

1. The Comb Over.

Comb overs are very popular in the Arab world, and I don’t understand why. The comb over makes it much more apparent that its wearer is bald, while adding a zest of comic-relief, especially since most men who have comb-overs are the serious kind. Get over it.

Baldness is so much cooler. Case in point:

br2. The Afrullet

I have to admit that this whole post was inspired by this particular do, which Moose brought to my attention. I do not really mind mullets, and I love afros, but the unholy mix of afro AND mullet is really worth writing a whole post about :)

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3. The Mushroom

The mushroom haircut, in all its variations, is probably the worst sought-after hairstyle ever. It’s even brutal on kids.

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4. Super long hair

Why anyone in the world would subject themselves to the complete illogical unfunctionality of super long hair defeats me. WHY? Super long hair is very popular among a certain class of Arab chickas, and it just reminds me of the worst song EVER.

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5. The Bald Ponytail.

It just makes you look like you’re fighting reality. Get rid of it. It’s fugly.

Many months ago we heard about Google Ta3reeb, a transliteration lab from Google that is very similar to Yamli. Today, I noticed that they also added the tool to GMail, where you can have your 3arabizi transliterated instantly into Arabic as you compose your email.

Really nice infograph that just proves that blue might be the most overused color in the world (isn’t it enough that the sky and the sea are blue?)I mean, don’t get me wrong, I like blue, but this inforgraph is a little shocking. You know subconsciously that blue is all over the place in the corporate world, but this much?

Yesterday evening was the launch of the Global Entrepreneurship Week in Jordan. The event is happening simultaneously all across the globe with the aim of “mentoring madness” :) Okay, that’s not really true, the real aim is to connect young people everywhere through local, national and global activities designed to help them explore their potential as self-starters and innovators.

One of my favorite speakers, Joi Ito, talked a little about new ideas, and said how they usually “Sound stupid until you try them.” Of course, as I’m sure you know if you’ve been reading this blog for a while, I have been an avid supporter of Creative Commons since I first heard of it in 2004, and it was awesome listening to the man behind it talk. Ito also mentioned how many companies lower the cost of failure, and this lower cost of innovation, because starting businesses can be a very high-risk factor. Creative Commons was created to cut down from the risk, and provide easy way for creative people like Google to worry less about copyrights and lawyers by standardizing the online system of copy right.

Sami Shalabi also gave a very interesting talk, citing that his favorite thing about coming to Jordan was eating good shawerma :) He also talked about how although entrepreneurs only have an 18% shot at success, with open source, the cost could be very low. He cited himself as an example, where his venture Zingku (which was bought by Google) produced some softwares with the total cost of ZERO, while their highest expenditure was actually caffeine :)

Maher Qadura was refreshingly critical of our culture of criticism, saying that as Jordanians, criticism is a core competence, and how we have to thrive on that and let it help us become better. Jordan has lowered traffic accidents by 30% this year, with many thanks going to his organization’s efforts.

Mitchell Baker of Mozilla talked very passionately about being open when dealing with business, and transparency. She said how Mozilla is a non-profit foundation that actually makes profit! :) That woman is awesome. Her self-confidence is amazing. I think she’s my new hero.
Laith Qasem of YEA was talking about the state of creative content in the Arab world, and he said a very interesting thing: In the Arab world, we have the pipelines, the hardware, the technology, but we have nothing to push through these pipelines. Which is very true. We need more creatives, more content creators, more people who should shove good taste down the Arab world’s throat.

Really, very impressive event organied by The Queen Rania Center for Entrepreneurship, Endeavor Jordan, Creative Commons an the Young Entrepreneurs Association.

Meanwhile, for those of you who want to meet and listen to the fantastic Joi Ito, Reid Hoffman, Mitchell Baker, Sami Shalabi, and Habib Hadad, the event today at PSUT is open to the public and free of charge. Not to be missed!